yard

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A fundamental unit of length in both the US Customary System and the British Imperial System, equal to 3 feet, or 36 inches (0.9144 meter).
• noun Nautical A long tapering spar slung to a mast to support and spread the head of a square sail, lugsail, or lateen.
• noun A square yard.
• noun A cubic yard.
• noun A tract of ground next to, surrounding, or surrounded by a building or buildings.
• noun A tract of ground, often enclosed, used for a specific business or activity.
• noun A baseball park.
• noun An area where railroad trains are made up and cars are switched, stored, and serviced on tracks and sidings.
• noun A winter pasture for deer or other grazing animals.
• noun An enclosed tract of ground in which animals, such as chickens or pigs, are kept.
• intransitive verb To enclose, collect, or put into a yard.
• intransitive verb To gather together into a yard.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To put into or inclose in a yard; shut up in a yard, as cattle: as, to yard cows.
• To resort to winter pastures: said of moose and deer.
• To shoot deer in their winter yards.
• noun A rod; a stick; a wand; a branch or twig.
• noun Rule; direction; correction.
• noun A measuring-rod or -stick of the exact length of 3 feet or 36 imperial inches; a yardstick.
• noun The fundamental unit of English long measure.
• noun Nautical, a long cylindrical spar having a rounded taper toward each end, slung crosswise to a mast and used for suspending certain of the sails called either square or lateen sails according as the yard is suspended at right angles or obliquely.
• noun A long piece of timber, as a rafter.
• noun In heraldry, a bearing representing a staff or wand divided into equal parts, as if for a measure.
• noun The virile member; the penis.
• noun Hence— A pint of ale, beer, or wine served in a yard-glass, and usually drunk for amusement or on a wager, on account of the likelihood of spilling or choking. Compare ale-yard.
• To summon for hiring: a process formerly used in the Isle of Man, and executed by the coroner of the sheading or district on behalf of the deemsters and others entitled to a priority of choice of the servants at a fair or market.
• noun A piece of inclosed ground of small or moderate size; particularly, a piece of ground inclosing or adjoining a house or other building, or inclosed by it: as, a front yard; a court-yard; a dooryard; a churchyard; an inn-yard; a barn-yard; a vineyard.
• noun An inclosure within which any work or business is carried on: as, a brick-yard; a wood-yard; a tan-yard; a dock-yard; a stock-yard; a navy-yard.
• noun In railway usage, the space or tract adjacent to a railway station or terminus, which is used for the switching or making up of trains, the accommodation of rolling-stock, and similar purposes.
• noun A garden; now, chiefly, a kitchen- or cottage-garden: as, a kale-yard.
• noun The winter pasture or browsing-ground of moose and deer; a moose-yard.
• noun A measure of land in England, varying locally: in Buckinghamshire, formerly, 28 to 40 acres; in Wiltshire, a quarter of an acre. Compare yard-land.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun An inclosure; usually, a small inclosed place in front of, or around, a house or barn
• noun An inclosure within which any work or business is carried on
• noun a liberty, granted to persons imprisoned for debt, of walking in the yard, or within any other limits prescribed by law, on their giving bond not to go beyond those limits.
• noun an inclosure about a prison, or attached to it.
• noun (Bot.) a low-growing grass (Eleusine Indica) having digitate spikes. It is common in dooryards, and like places, especially in the Southern United States. Called also crab grass.
• noun See Yardland.
• transitive verb To confine (cattle) to the yard; to shut up, or keep, in a yard.
• noun obsolete A rod; a stick; a staff.
• noun obsolete A branch; a twig.
• noun obsolete A long piece of timber, as a rafter, etc.
• noun A measure of length, equaling three feet, or thirty-six inches, being the standard of English and American measure.
• noun The penis.
• noun (Naut.) A long piece of timber, nearly cylindrical, tapering toward the ends, and designed to support and extend a square sail. A yard is usually hung by the center to the mast. See Illust. of Ship.
• noun (Zoöl.) A place where moose or deer herd together in winter for pasture, protection, etc.
• noun (Astron.) a popular name of the three stars in the belt of Orion.